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Industrial Fishing Fleets Set Course for Disaster |
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Dead Ahead - Industrial Fishing Fleets Set Course for Disaster
Greenpeace International
May 1998CONTENTS
Quote: Elizabeth Mann Borgese
The Global Fisheries Crisis Deepens
Ripping Vital Links From The Marine Food Chain
Some Vital Facts You Should Know About Commercial Fishing
Ocean-Going Factories Plunder The Seas
Industrialized Fleet Dominates The Global Fish Catch
Which Countries Are Responsible?
The Call For Large Reductions In Industrialized Fleets
Greenpeace Demands
Where And How To Cut Back
Quote: Father Thomas Kocherry
Information Sources"The penetration of the oceans by the industrial revolution has only begun......"
The Global Fisheries Crisis Deepens
Greenpeace has long been warning that the world's oceans are under a very serious and growing threat from overfishing. Not only have many major fish stocks been depleted, some even collapsing completely such as cod off Canada's east coast but excessive fishing pressure is placing many other marine animals at risk. From the north Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, marine mammals, seabirds, sharks and key fish species in the intricate web of marine biodiversity are being overexploited, caught and killed as 'bycatch', or threatened by the industrialized fisheries for species that are critical links in the marine food web.
Fisheries analysts at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that virtually 70% of the world's fisheries are fully- to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. Adding to the problem is the enormous waste of the industrialized fishing fleet which catches, kills and throws back overboard a large part of 27 million of marine life discarded on average each year. The most blatant cause of this destruction and waste is the unregulated growth and expansion in commercial fisheries based on large-scale, capital and technology intensive fishing vessels - the world's fleet of industrialized fishing vessels.
As more and more fish stocks decline, debt-ridden industrialized fleets are under increasing pressure to spend greater time and effort to catch fish, or to find other stocks, even new species, to exploit in a repeat of their destructive pattern of overfishing. Fish no longer have anywhere to hide from the hi-tech fishing factories that hunt them down for the kill.
Ripping Vital Links From The Marine Food Chain
The extent to which the world's marine ecosystems are threatened by overfishing, and the implications for marine wildlife populations, has been exposed in an exhaustive study led by University of British Columbia (Canada) marine scientist Dr. Daniel Pauly. Dr. Pauly's team of scientists used a mountain of data compiled over 50 years by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on more than 200 distinct species caught in the world's oceans and seas. They catalogued how in one ocean after another fishing has caused the depletion of the biggest, most valuable stocks, and then worked its way down the marine food web, catching more and more of the smaller species. Dr. Pauly warned that at the current rate of exploitation many stocks could be eliminated within 25 years. "You can end up with the sea full of jelly fish," said Pauly. He summed up his concern in a gloomy prediction:
"The big fish, the bill fish, the groupers, the big things will be gone. It is happening now. If things go unchecked, we will have a sea full of little horrible things that nobody wants to eat. We might end up with a marine junkyard dominated by plankton."
Greenpeace has been sounding the alarm about such dire consequences for marine ecology for a decade, highlighting in particular that there are simply too many large-scale, high-tech fishing boats roaming the world's oceans on an unsustainable course of plunder for profit wherever fish stocks can be found.
Ocean-Going Factories Plunder The Seas
The FAO estimates that there are about 3.5 million fishing boats on the world's oceans and seas. Working from data supplied by the Lloyd's Maritime Service, the FAO Bulletin of Fishery Fleet Statistics (1994) and other sources, Greenpeace estimates that today there are approximately 35,000 ships that can be classified as large-scale, industrialized fishing vessels. Generally speaking, this is a class of fishing ships that weigh in at over 100 "gross registered tons" or GRT (as a general rule, 100 GRT vessels correspond to approximately 24 meters overall length, though there are exceptions).
Of the world's fleet, 99-per cent are small-scale and non-industrialized. Many are simple canoes powered by paddles or sail. One-third (about 1.2 million) of these boats are small-scale, motorized "decked" vessels, while nearly two-thirds (about 2.3 million) are "undecked" craft that operate in small-scale, coastal fisheries.
Though relatively few in number, the high-tech, industrialized fishing vessels, many exceeding the length of a football field, dominate the world's fishing business. Greenpeace estimates that this relatively small number of 35,000 industrialized fishing boats makes up about half of the total 'capacity' of the world's entire fishing fleet of 3.5 million vessels. Working from FAO figures published in 1994 in its Bulletin of Fishery Fleet Statistics, Greenpeace estimates that the combined tonnage of this large-scale, industrialized fleet is about 13 million GRT. The total fishing vessel tonnage on the water today is roughly 26 million tons. Put another way, the large-scale fleet - a mere one per cent of the entire global fishing fleet by number - makes up about half (50%) of the world's entire fishing capacity.
Industrialized Fleet Dominates The Global Fish Catch
How much of world's marine fisheries catches can be attributed to this industrialized fleet? Greenpeace believes this relatively small number of fishing vessels comprising the industrialized fleet take the lion's share of the world's marine fisheries landings. In doing so, these vessels are the greatest contributors to the potentially irreparable harm to the marine environment caused by overfishing.
The UN FAO reports that world landings from marine fisheries stood at 84.7 million tons in 1995. According to FAO, more than 31 million tons of this, or more than 35 per cent of the global catch, were ground up ("reduced") into fish meal and oil, most of which is used to feed farmed livestock and in growing other high-value marine species such as salmon and farmed shrimp. The vast majority of the fish reduced to meal and oil is caught by large-scale vessels.
The remainder of the 84.7 million tons of capture fisheries landings - almost 54 million tons - is destined for direct human consumption. FAO fisheries officials believe the industrialized fleet is catching somewhat more than half of this 54 million tons of fish for direct human consumption from marine capture fisheries compared to the remainder of the global marine fishing fleet of small-scale vessels.
Greenpeace concludes that the relatively small number of 35,000 industrialized vessels larger than 100 GRT - by number about one-per cent of the world's entire fishing fleet - catches between half and two-thirds of the world's reported catches from marine fisheries. Greenpeace believes that the greatest conservation benefits and protection for the marine environment from the negative impacts of overfishing can be achieved if substantial reductions are made to the capacity of the industrialized fishing - the one-per cent of fishing vessels that comprise about 50 per cent of global fishing vessel capacity.
Which Countries Are Responsible?
What countries contribute most to the problem of overcapacity in the global marine fishing fleet? A straightforward answer comes from a look at the global marine fisheries catch to see which countries catch the most fish. While not every country with large fish catches has large numbers of big, industrialized fishing boats, most do (China and India have millions of community-based fishing people using mainly small craft for example).
Top 20 Marine Fisheries Producing Countries, 1995
(millions of tons)
1. China 13.58 2. Peru 8.89 3. Chile 7.59 4. European Union 7.23 5. Japan 6.28 6. USA 5.32 7. Russian Federation. 4.06 8. Indonesia 3.30 9. Thailand 3.22 10. Norway 2.80 11. India 2.70 12. Korean Republic. 2.52 13. Philippines 1.73 14. Korea DP Rep. 1.73 15. Iceland 1.61 16. Malaysia 1.22 17. Mexico 1.21 18. Argentina 1.13 19. Taiwan 0.99 20. Vietnam 0.90
World Catch 84.7
Top 20 Industrialized Fishing Vessel Countries, 1994 Country
1. European Union 3094 2. USA 2830 3. Japan 2423 4. Russia 2251 5. Korean Republic 1012 6. Peru 582 7. Panama * 574 8. Norway 509 9. Honduras * 448 10. Morocco 384 11. Mexico 363 12. Iceland 341 13. Argentina 339 14. Philippines 328 15. Chile 317 16. Indonesia 315 17. Canada 306 18. Taiwan 281 19. Poland 275 20. China 253
* Flag of convenience country; the "convenience" for fishing vessel owners that reflag to such countries is that there are few, if any, regulations or catch reporting requirements. Consequently, FOC countries generally file inadequate, or no, catch figures to FAO. The Call For Large Reductions In Industrialized Fleets
In 1995, the FAO Ministerial Conference on Fisheries adopted the Rome Consensus on World Fisheries, stating that the problem of overfishing and particularly the overcapacity of industrial fishing fleets threatened the sustainability of the world's fisheries resources for present and future generations. The ministers urged governments and international organizations to urgently review the capacity of fishing fleets and where necessary reduce them. This call is backed by other important international fisheries agreements such as the 1995 UN Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks which primarily addressed the control of largely unregulated high seas fishing. The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries widens the call to reduce excess fishing capacity to include fisheries inside zones of national jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, nations responsible for reducing their fishing fleets' capacity are generally failing to put words on paper into action. Greenpeace commissioned research to assess recent trends in the capacity of the world fishing fleet and the extent to which governments were taking effective steps to reduce the fishing capacity of their fleets. The research, by Chris Newton, former Chief of Fishery Information, Data and Statistics Service (FIDI) and John Fitzpatrick, former Chief of the Fishing Technology Service (FIIT) of FAO's Fishery Industries Division, was compiled in a May 1998 report to Greenpeace International titled Assessment of the World's Fishing Fleet 1991-1997.
Newton and Fitzpatrick show that fishing fleets are not being restructured, that capacity is not being effectively reduced but is in fact increasing, and that states with open registers (so-called "flag of convenience" states) are increasing their fishing capacity.
Their findings clearly show that the expansion in the size and capacity of the world's fishing fleets continued to increase over the period 1991-1996. From 1991 to 1995 there were 1,549 new large-scale fishing vessels added to the world's fleet. Another 105 fishing vessels were built in 1996, taking the total to 1,654. Although a slow down in new additions occurred in 1995 and 1996, orders for 244 new vessels over 100 GRT in 1997 indicate a return to the trend of constructing fishing vessels with large tonnage. Throughout the period 1991-95, additions to the world's fleet continued to exceed deletions. The authors point out that much of the industrial fishing fleet is already quite old and inefficient and in need of scrapping, with the percentage of vessels older than 20 years standing at 48% in 1997.
Roughly 82% of the number of new additions to the world's fishing fleet between 1991 - 1995 were made by just 14 countries, of which four (Japan, EU, Honduras, Russia) accounted for 53%. Fifteen per cent of new additions belonged to four countries (Honduras, Liberia, Panama, Cyprus) offering open registers, commonly referred to as flags of convenience (FOCs). In terms of tonnage, 80% of new additions were by 19 states, with five states responsible for 53%.
Newton and Fitzpatrick stress that new fishing vessel construction trends show more vessels are being built with technology used to fish either large amounts of relatively low-valued species, or widely distributed species that are at depths which were previously beyond technological and economic reach. Modern construction is being specialized toward large vessels using gigantic mid-water trawls, highly specialized auto long-lines of up to 50,000 hooks and deep water fishing with trawls/long-lines on sea mounts and in deep ocean ridges.
The efficiency, or fishing power, of fishing vessels is also increasing. Newton and Fitzpatrick estimate that a large factory trawler (supertrawler) built in 1995 has two and a half times the fishing power of a similar sized factory trawler built in 1980 and over four times the fishing power of a vessel built in 1970. Between 1980 - 1995 fish finding and catching technology increased rapidly, not only from more advanced electronics and hydraulic equipment, but in refrigeration, fuel efficiency, remote sensing equipment and improved vessel design configurations. Newton and Fitzpatrick's calculations show that while the world's fishing fleet increased by three per cent in terms of tonnage between 1992 and 1997, the world's fleet actually increased by 22% in terms of potential fishing capacity through new additions to the fleet and refits.
Fishing Vessel Additions to the World's Fleets, 1991 - 1995
1. Japan 297 19.2 2. EU 248 35.2 3. Honduras 153 45.1 4. Russia 125 53.1 5. Peru 109 60.2 6. Former USSR 81 65.4 7. Chile 46 68.4 8. Liberia 42 71.1 9. Morocco 37 73.5 10. China 32 75.5 11. Argentina 31 77.5 12. Iran 26 79.2 13. S. Korea 24 80.8 14. USA 23 82.2
Top 12 Builders of Industrialized Fishing Vessels, 1991-1995
1. Spain 140 150,384 2. Russia 151 114,918 3. Germany 35 99,309 4. Japan 301 95,914 5. Taiwan 165 94,032 6. Ukraine 24 61,812 7. Norway 38 56,573 8. Peru 115 43,315 9. Poland 73 37,993 10. Chile 45 33,109 11. Netherlands 47 32,217 12. South Korea 51 19,021 Source: Newton and Fitzpatrick report to Greenpeace. * Although it is well known that Spain and Russia, for example, build large-scale fishing ships, it should also be noted, as indicated above, that Germany, Norway and the Ukraine, have been building very large-scale, industrialized fishing vessels in recent years.
Newton and Fitzpatrick's analysis also shows that the number of vessels flying "flags of convenience" continues to rise. More countries are also offering their flags than ever before. Reflagging enables vessel owners to "dodge the rules", to avoid conservation and management measures which their own flag states might otherwise enforce. To do this, owners transfer vessels registered in their own countries to other states which do not participate in the implementation of management measures or which have no will or capability to control their fishing. Newton and Fitzpatrick suggest that States may be able to stop vessels currently registered at home from reflagging by introducing legislation denying requests for deletions, preventing national fishing vessels from leaving their jurisdiction.
Such a substantial increase in the industrialized fishing fleet in just five short years represents a blatant rejection of common-sense global calls for a reduction in fishing effort in order to relieve fishing pressure on overexploited stocks and help their recovery. To achieve this goal, Newton and Fitzpatrick recommend in their report to Greenpeace that the international community should require at least a 50% reduction in the present size of the industrialized fleet.
Greenpeace is calling on governments of fishing nations to cut the numbers and capacity of large-scale fishing fleets by at least half by 2005 through:
- Eliminating government subsidies to industrialized fishing vessels and fleets,
- Imposing a global moratorium on new industrialized fishing vessel construction,
- Establishing or enhance fishing vessel decommissioning schemes,
- Eliminating reflagging and flag of convenience (pirate/illegal) fishing vessels,
- Ratifying and implementing the 1995 UN Fisheries Agreement,
- Adopting and applying the Greenpeace Principles for Ecologically Responsible Fisheries, including the strict application of the Precautionary Approach to fisheries management .
In striving for recovery and the establishment of ecologically responsible fishing, the governments of the top marine fisheries countries are confronted by the urgent challenge to choose where to make cuts in fishing effort: in the large-scale, industrialized sector, or in small-scale, community-based fisheries. If governments do not act now the choice will, sooner or later, be made for them when one fish stock after another collapses, as in eastern Canada where tens of thousands of people employed in the cod fishery lost their jobs overnight in 1992. The decisions they make will have tremendous ecological, economic, and social implications.
Industrialized vessels and fleets are capable of roaming the world's oceans and depleting fish stocks at will, in many instances operating beyond nation-state regulation. Industrialized fleets are engaged in illegal fishing on the high seas, in the Southern Ocean, and in numerous developing country EEZs (200 mile limits). They are involved in new and exploratory fisheries in deep ocean areas, exploiting previously unperturbed species and ecosystems. And industrialized fleets are involved in conflicts with small-scale and coastal fishers and communities worldwide.
These fleets receive the lion's share of Government subsidies which, according to UN FAO and World Bank estimates, range from 25 to 50 billion dollars annually. These handouts are for a variety of purposes - from subsidizing fuel costs to supporting wealthy investors in building monstrous, high tech fishing factories up to 137 meters in length that are capable of roaming the world's oceans to devastate fish stocks.
The industrialized vessels are most often the boats that use the largest-scale technology. This in turn equals high bycatch, heavy fishing pressure, and a host of other problems. And industrialized fleets (unlike much of the small-scale sector) generally are not those providing food for local communities in areas of the world where food needs are most acute, but fisheries products for the global market.
Small-scale, community-based fisheries actually provide about the same amount of marine fish for human consumption as the industrialized fishing sector on a global basis each year. The small-scale sector, however, tends to be less wasteful and more efficient in terms of resource use. It creates substantially less bycatch/discards than the large-scale sector, generally bringing to shore all catch for consumption by the fishermen's families and other members of their communities.
Recently published data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization shows that many times more people are employed in the small-scale fisheries sector than in the large-scale. At present there are some 15 million fishers directly employed worldwide onboard fishing vessels of all sizes in marine fisheries, but about 90%, or some 13,500,000 people, work on the smaller-scale vessels. The number of people who work on the industrialized fishing vessels, those larger than 100 GRT/24 meters, number some 1,500,000.
This is not to say that there are not many problems to be confronted and solved within the non-industrialized, small-scale fishing sector. For example, the Italian driftnet fishing fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of relatively small-scale vessels, sets thousands of kilometers of driftnets each night targeting swordfish, but killing many other types of marine life, including sperm whales, dolphins, tuna and other fish, and despite the fact that the international community has banned the use of driftnets on the high seas. And the fact is, a large number of small-boats concentrated into an ecosystem can do as much damage to fish stocks and marine ecology as a fleet of larger vessels. Too many boats chasing too few fish always adds up to a race to ecological disaster and economic ruin.
Nevertheless, the global trend in world fisheries is toward "Fish Big". That must end. The oceans simply cannot sustain bigger, faster, more powerful fishing vessels. Fishers in the small-scale, non-industrial sector are being increasingly squeezed out fishing grounds by an invading and ever-increasing armada of new, expensive and big high-technology fishing factories that employ much fewer people, but catch vastly greater amounts of fish in often highly destructive ways. Greenpeace's concern is that this is a trend that will continue until there are simply just no more fish left to catch. It can't go on forever!
The organizer of successful fishworkers' protests in India against the introduction of foreign factory fishing vessels into Indian waters, and recently appointed chairman of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers says:
"Let us begin with a global ban on factory trawlers that beyond all others have the targeting technology, fishing and freezing capacity, and range to wipe out entire fish populations at will anywhere in the world."
The following served as important sources of information in the preparation of this publication:
Marine Fisheries and the Law of the Sea: A Decade of Change. Special chapter (revised) of The State of Food and Agriculture 1992. Rome, FAO Fisheries Department. 1993.
Bulletin of Fishery Statistics - Fishery Fleet Statistics. No. 34. Rome, FAO. 1994.
Serge Garcia and Chris Newton. FAO Fisheries Department. Current Situation, Trends and Prospects in World Capture Fisheries. Paper presented at the Conference on Fisheries Management - Global Trends. Seattle, WA. USA, 14-16 June 1994.
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 1994. Rome, FAO Fisheries Department. 1995.
FAO Yearbook of Fishery Statistics: Catches and Landings 1995. Vol. 80, FAO Statistics Series, no 134.
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 1996. Rome, FAO Fisheries Department. 1997.
John Fitzpatrick and Chris Newton. Assessment of the World's Fishing Fleet 1991-1997. Submitted to Greenpeace International. Amsterdam, Greenpeace International. 1998.
Review of the State of World Fishery Resources: Marine Fisheries. Marine Resources Service, Fishery Resources Division, Fisheries Department, FAO, Rome, Italy. The latest revision is available on the UN FAO Fisheries Department's worldwide web siteat: http://www.fao.org/.
Some of the statistical information and publications listed above are accessible from the UN FAO Fishery Department's worldwide web site: http://www.fao.org/.
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